


what happens in vegas

by mishcollin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mishcollin/pseuds/mishcollin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes up with a wedding ring and without a clue where he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

            Dean wakes up to a loud, persistent pounding at the door, a funny taste in his mouth, and a distinctly sinking feeling that something really terrible has happened.

            This sentiment is quickly amplified when Dean twists onto his side and feels something cold and hard on his ring finger snag on the sheets. Befuddled and blocking out Sam’s insistent, muffled _“Deeeeean,_ ” from behind the door, Dean lifts up his hand and stares. And stares. And stares.

            There’s no way, no _fucking_ way that that’s a goddamned wedding ring.

            Dean closes his eyes and wills himself to wake up, trying to convince himself that Sam’s voice, the seedy hotel room, the silver band on his finger are all figments of his imagination. That maybe would explain the strange gap in his head, the space of silence where yesterday’s memories should sit. And the day before. And…the day before?

            Dean finally rolls over and pads barefoot to the door.

            “Dean,” Sam says in relief when he opens it. “Thank God.”

            “Sam,” Dean says in a deceptively calm voice. “Where the fuck am I.”

            “Were you really _that_ drunk, Dean?” Sam asks with an exasperated quirk of his eyebrows. “You’re at the Super 8 on Koval.”

            “No, Sam,” Dean snaps, “I mean, city, state and _continent_.”

            Sam stares at him uncomprehendingly for a good three seconds before saying, slowly, “Okay, wait a minute…”

            “I have no idea where the hell I am,” Dean hisses. “Or why the fuck I’ve got _this—_ ” He thrusts up his left hand for Sam’s inspection. “—on my finger!”

            Sam swallows and takes Dean’s wrist, lowers it gently. “Dean, let’s just be calm about this for a second, okay? You’re in Las Vegas, Nevada.”

            “Figures,” Dean mutters because really? Is his entire life one long miserable cliché? “At least tell me the wife’s hot.”

            Sam flattens his lips into a thin, white line. “Sit down for a minute, Dean.”

            Dean swings the door wider so Sam can enter and storms over to the motel’s only armchair, sinking into it with a disgusted wince at the thought of all that’s probably transpired there.

            “You don’t remember how you got here?” Sam says, perching himself on the bed and steepling his hands. “Like….at all?”

            “Um, when did we decide to go to _Vegas,_ for starters?”

            “It was your idea,” Sam says, almost accusingly. “You wanted to show Cas a good night, remember?”

            “No, I _don’t_ remember! Where is that little shit, anyway?”

            “He’s, erm, getting breakfast.” Sam’s voice is evasive and his eyes are shifty, flicking toward various objects in the room and not meeting Dean’s eyes. Dean decides not to question it, wearily thinking he’ll probably find out about it one way or another. “What’s the last thing you remember, Dean?”

            Dean thinks hard, racking his brain for some sort of concrete memory. “Um…we were eating lunch in the bunker and we were talking to Cas about the _Star Wars_ movies. I think we ended up watching them, but I…I can’t remember….”

            Sam’s eyebrows have crawled to his hairline. “Dean, that was a _week_ ago.”

            “Okay, so?” Dean snaps, his panic making him edgy. “You think that’s _my_ fault?”

            “No, no,” Sam says, his Adam’s apple hitching a bit as he plumbs his hands through his hair. “Just, just. It just means that we need to reevaluate some stuff.”

            “Well, you can start off by filling me in on what happened last night. Or last week, I don’t know. And if I married some random chick, where the hell is she? Doesn’t seem likely that she’d ditch with this last-legal-form-of-slavery bullshit.”

            Oh, God, he’s _married._ Dean Winchester, love-em-and-leave-em extraordinaire, can’t-be-tethered hunter with a life in a car and a highway to nowhere, is _married._

“She’s, uh, she’s around,” Sam says in an alarmingly high-pitched voice.

            “Oh, God, please tell me I didn’t pull a _you_ and marry a Becky.”

            “Dean.” Sam’s voice edges on a whine. “We said we weren’t going to talk about that. Ever.”

            “Heh.”

            “And actually, you fucked up even worse than I did, just so you know.” The petulance in Sam’s voice is snagged somewhere between glee and discomfort, like he’s uncomfortable in exploiting Dean’s situation but also pretty fucking smug about it. Typical Sam.

            “Is she over 50?”

            “No.”

            Dean freezes, swallows. “Is she, uh, _older_ than 16…”

            “God, Dean, you sicko! Yes, okay, yes, just quit it with the 20 Questions.”

            “Then why don’t you actually give me some answers?”

            “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll start at the beginning. Just…bear with me, okay?” Sam takes a deep breath.

\---

            About a week ago, Dean had come up with the ingenious plan to take Cas out on the town, so to speak.

            “No, seriously, Sam,” Dean persisted eagerly, “this guy’s never been laid, never been drunk as a human, never gambled, never _lived.”_

“’This guy’ is sitting right here,” Cas said sourly. “And I am virtually uninterested in women, alcohol, or gambling, Dean.”

            Dean, considerate friend he was, swept on, “We should go big, Sammy. We should go Vegas.”

            “And exploit Cas’ inexperience as a human?” Sam asked, skeptically.

            “Uh, _duh_.”

\--

            “Okay, whoa, whoa,” Dean cuts in to protest. “You make me sound like a total asshole. There’s no way in hell I said that.”

            “That’s what you said, Dean, I’m just quoting.”

            “Yeah, I’ll be sure to quiz Cas on that one. When’s he getting back, anyway?”

\--

            “Dean, I’m not interested in going to Las Vegas,” Cas said, standing from the table and rumpling his hair. Dean’s eyes followed the movement a little too closely, swallowing a bit.

            “That’s only because you’ve never been,” Dean replied with a waggle of his eyebrows. “It’s truly a revelationary experience.”

            “I doubt that,” Cas muttered, wetting his lips unhappily, and Dean’s eyes drifted to Cas’ mouth—

\--

            “Sam, would you cut it out? This sounds like _Fifty Shades of Gay,_ Jesus.”

            “I’m just telling it like it is, Dean.”

            “Yeah, well, if you could tell the story sans _Brokeback Mountain,_ thanks.”

\--

            Dean very masculinely did not look at Cas’ lips.

            “Look, I won’t push you to do anything you don’t want to, alright, Cas?” Dean wheedled. “But I’m telling you, I think you’d have fun and it would be a good break from all this angel crap. A nice long road-trip and a drunk night out is all you need.”

            Cas shrugged. “I don’t usually have a choice in these matters with you.”

            “Vegas it is,” Dean said with a slow fist-pump. “Fuck yes.”

            Cas just shook his head in tired exasperation and stretched his arms above his head, his threadbare shirt riding up above his hipbones. Dean, very heterosexual and not gay man that he was, did not pay it any attention.

            Some other unimportant stuff happened leading up to the days before they left; Kevin sulked around the house, Dean educated Cas on movie and television choices, and Sam spent the days sleeping, recovering, doing painfully easy crosswords from the local newspaper, and browsing the library and the archive.

            When the day finally came to leave, Dean was practically bouncing around with excitement to get out of the house, being all annoyingly playful with Sam and Cas by punching Sam in the shoulder or clapping Cas’ chest and ruffling his hair. It’s a thing Dean always did when he got eager about stuff and it was fucking annoying, especially when the departure time was like 6 am. I mean, seriously. Who the fuck wants to go anywhere at 6 am, let alone Las Vegas, Dean.

            Dean blasted his irritating music in the car basically the entire way to Nevada and didn’t pause to ask Sam to drive; he drove on through the night, looking a little more rejuvenated than Sam had seen him in ages. However, the music happened to be the same freaking Led Zeppelin and AC/DC tapes over and over again, much like the ones Sam had listened to every year he’d traveled with Dean, and seriously, Dean, how many times do you have to listen to _Physical Graffiti_ without wanting to punch someone in the face.

            Dean talked to Cas a lot too; he’d been a lot happier, Sam had noticed, since Cas had shown up rain-soaked and heavily layered and scruffy on the front doorstep, and Sam was actually surprised at the comfort level of their friendship, given all the shit that had gone down between them lately. They talked easily and when they didn’t talk, it was like they didn’t have to, like they never had to in the first place. It was actually kind of weird. Cas was zen the whole way to Vegas, seeming resigned to his fate and sleeping most of the way. Dean kept darting glances at him like he couldn’t believe he was there. In a completely hetero sort of way.

            They’d rented a motel room—one that _wasn’t_ this one; how Dean had gotten to a random Super 8 is a little fuzzy to Sam. They’d settled in, Dean had taken a nap from driving. Cas had crashed beside him, and Sam had done some research from potential cases in the area just for recreational purposes.

            Finally, they’d gone out, Dean refreshed and Cas muttering reluctant, nervous things under his breath. Dean had chattered to Cas the entire way to the casino, and when they’d gotten there, ordered the three of them five shots each at the bar.

            “Really, Dean?” Sam had asked with a slight frown. “I’m not eighteen anymore, jeez.”

            “Well, Samantha, maybe you can’t handle your liquor, but I bet you anything that Cas can. Am I right, Cas?”

            Cas eyed the shots distrustfully and said, “The last time I drank had unpleasant repercussions.”

            “Well, that’s why you can’t think about the day after. Just focus on having a good time.” Dean clapped a hand on Cas’ shoulder, and almost comfortingly, slid his grasp lightly along the bridge of his bicep, as if a quiet communication Sam was excluded from. “Hey, Cas, you’ll be fine, okay? Sammy and I’ll take care of you if you go overboard.”

            “I’m not a child, Dean,” Cas said, straightening in his seat and squaring his shoulders. “I can take care of myself, and we came here to have a good time.” And without preamble he’d taken all five shots in one go, to which Sam had winced in sympathy and Dean had crowed gleefully and gloated to Sam, “See that, Sammy!”

            Turned out Cas was a fucking _lightweight;_ after like another shot or two, Cas was slurring his words and stumbling his way into the side of the bar, staring at Dean with wide, glassy eyes like he’d been granted some kind of new vision.

            Dean had downed five, then another three, and glared reproachfully at Sam while the latter nursed his beer.

            “C’mon, Sammy, live a little,” Dean protested, giving him a shove, to which Sam was stoically unmoved.

            “You and Cas need supervision.”

            “Don’t be a dick.”

            “You might want to keep him on a leash,” Sam said with an arch of his eyebrows and a nod in Cas’ direction, where he was in the process of getting hit up by a curvy brunette woman not three feet from them.

            Dean frowned, seeming vexed, before he shook it off. “We took him here to have a good time. He should be fine.”

            Cas chatted to her for several minutes, seeming actually engaged, much to Sam’s surprise and Dean’s irritation. Dean had always been a grumpy drunk, though.

            “How is it Cas is getting hit on and not me?” Dean griped to Sam after a few minutes of hawkishly observing Cas and the hot girl.

            “He’s not an unattractive guy, Dean.”

            “Yeah, but he’s…” Dean made a sloppy, vague hand gesture, his eyes fastened unwaveringly on the back of Cas’s head. “He’s just…Cas.”

            “That should be more than enough for someone, Dean.” Wow, Dean was being an ass. Cas was a good guy, and he could easily find someone despite the checkered past thing. And the whole matter of previously being a different species and kickstarting a couple of apocalypses. Apocalypti? Hmm.

            “Yeah,” Dean muttered, absently, running his finger almost nervously along the hem of the bar as he watched Cas and the woman with cold calculation. “Fuck, I’m not drunk enough for this.” And he’d ordered another two shots.

            Dean continued to watch the woman and Cas with a malignant, foul-tempered sort of mood about him, a mood that soured in correlation to how much he drank. He glared in their direction with such intensity that Sam eventually elbowed him and said, “Dean, cut it out, you look like you want to kill something. More than usual, I mean. Are you really that jealous that Cas is getting hit on and you’re not? I mean, it’s not like he’s exactly rivaling your experience.”

            “No, it’s just.” Dean swallowed and fixed his eyes straight ahead at the rainbow assortment of vodkas above the bar, like he was pointedly trying to keep his gaze away from them. “I don’t like her.”

            “She seems perfectly nice.”

            “I don’t like her.”

            “Look, you’re the one who took Cas out to get laid, not set him up with his life partner. You don’t actually have to _approve_ of her if Cas thinks she’s hot and wants to bang her.” Sam’d had a couple beers by this point, at which point he always gets a little crude, but seriously, Dean was acting ridiculous.

            Dean shifted at this, grinding his teeth. “Cas doesn’t need some shitty hook-up with a random stranger.”

            Sam stared at him in disbelief for a couple moments, baffled, and reminded him, “That was the entire fucking point of this, Dean!”

            “Yeah, well, I changed my mind.”

            “Well, that’s not for you to decide if Cas wants to—”

            The woman at that opportune moment had placed a dainty hand on Cas’ shoulder, her fingers sliding along the slope of Cas’ neck to curl in the hairs at the back of his head.

            Something snapped in Dean at this, and a certain predatory look darkened his eyes that made Sam warn, _“Dean…_ ”

            “Nope,” he’d said and before Sam could refrain him, he had stomped over to Cas and gripped him by the shoulder.

            “Dean!” Sam snapped, but his brother didn’t hear him; he was too busy talking to Cas in a quiet voice. The girl looked downright offended, which she should, on the charge that Dean was being an asshole.

            “Dean,” Sam heard Cas say, “I’m right in the middle of something—”

            “Yeah, not anymore, you’re not. Sorry, sweetheart, you’ll have to excuse us.”

            “Whatfuckingever,” the girl said with a snide curl of her lip. “I didn’t realize Cas had an overprotective boyfriend.” And she’d sashayed off, leaving Sam shaking his head in second-hand embarrassment and with a motivation to suddenly down a few more drinks.

            “What the hell did you do that for?” Cas asked Dean hotly, his words a little slurred and his frown pronounced even in the dim darkness of the room. “Wasn’t that the entire point of this?”

            “I didn’t like her,” Dean said. “She was all over you.”

            “It’s not your job to choose suitors for me, Dean,” Cas had retorted, balling his fists. “You were the one who wanted me to get laid, and now that I actually had a chance to, you don’t _like_ the girl?”

            Dean was ducking his head and looking sort of uncharacteristically embarrassed; almost endearingly uncomfortable. The tips of his ears were pink; Sam could see that even from this distance, and even if he couldn’t he’d be able to tell by the way Dean’s scuffing his feet. The alcohol was clearly making Cas a little pissy, because he knocked his shoulder into Dean’s, hard, and demanded, “Answer me, Dean.”

            Dean’s eyes darted everywhere, licking his lips and shifting his feet again. “I’m sorry, Cas.”

            Cas seemed to soften at this a bit and said, a little more quietly, “It’s okay.”

            Sam was watching this whole conversation like _what the fuck_ because since when was Dean all shy and bashful and jealous and _weird_ around Cas? Usually Dean would be up in Cas’ face at a confrontation like that.

            Dean had sort of stumbled, and Cas caught him by both arms. Held onto him, fingers squeezing Dean’s arms gently. “Dean, you’re drunk.”

            “So ‘re you.”

            “Not drunk enough, it would appear,” Cas said with a martyred sigh, and he turned to order another few rounds.

            At this moment, an unfamiliar girl still in her mid-teens approached Sam; she had blond braids, braces, freckles, and looked _entirely_ out of place. “Um, hello, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation…did you, um, say those two were named Dean and Cas?”

            “Yeah,” Sam said absently, not looking at the girl and focusing his attention instead on the way Dean and Cas were getting weirdly touchy-feely with each other. What the fuck. “Um…”

            “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” the girl asked; when Sam finally turned to look at her, her wide eyes were fixed, a bit raptly, on Dean and Cas. “Are they…”

            “No, they’re not,” Sam said quickly, frowning at the girl. “Um, I’m sorry, do I know you from somewhere?”

            The girl flushed, splotches darkening her patches of freckles. “No, um, no you don’t. I’m sorry. I have to go…” And she scurried off, casting another owl-eyed look back at Dean and Cas before she vanished into the throngs of people gathered around the blackjack tables.

            Sam stared after her a few moments quizzically before turning to observe Dean and Cas again; but Dean was already hauling Cas away by the arm with a considerably lighter spirit about him and calling happily to Sam, “I’m gonna show Cas how to gamble, Sammy, I’ll catch you in a few—” And Sam hadn’t seen them after that.

\--

            Dean takes a moment to process this, pacing the length of the motel room as Sam sits and watches him.

            “You’re telling me I scared some chick off Cas?” Dean finally says, still digesting the odder parts of the story. “Doesn’t seem like something I’d do.”

            “You were pretty insistent,” Sam says with an uncomfortable laugh.

            “And I just took off with Cas? What the fuck did we get up to?”

            “Yeah, um,” Sam says, clearing his throat uncomfortably and rubbing his palms together, “look, Dean, before Cas gets back, we have to talk about something. It’s gonna be hard to hear and I’m going to need you handle it with the, er, proper delicacy.”

            “What the fuck are you talking about?”

            “Well, I didn’t see you after you left with Cas—you guys were _hammered,_ I mean, and I think you ended up drinking even more later on—and Cas filled me in on a couple things last night, and well—”

            Almost as if on cue, there’s a knock on the door before it opens and Cas steps through with three bags of donuts.

            “Hey, Cas,” Dean says, and to his utter confusion, Cas ducks his head, a flush crawling up his neck and pinking his cheekbones.

            “Hello, Dean.”

            “Care to fill me in on some stuff that went down last night? Apparently we had a wild night.”

            Cas snaps up to look at him, eyes wide and confused. “You mean you don’t remember?”

            “No,” Dean replies with a bitter laugh. “The entire last week of my hard drive was wiped.”

            Cas drops the donuts and sits down hard on the bed, planting his face into his hands and taking a deep breath.

            “Cas?” Dean asks, crossing the room to put a bracing hand on his shoulder. “You okay, buddy?” His gaze diverts, distracted by an odd flash of silver in the light.

            His entire brain short-circuits when his eyes fall on a familiar silver band on Cas’ hand. On his ring finger. On his _left ring finger._

            “No,” Dean says as this sinks in, backing up in horror, “no, no, _no_ —”

            “May I introduce the happy couple,” Sam says with a weak, choked kind of chuckle, “Mr. and Mr. Winchester."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas get married. Whoops.

“I need a drink.”

“Dean, it’s ten in the morning.”

“I don’t care.”

“Dean,” Sam says, jostling restlessly. “Can you please try to be mature about this for like two minutes?”

“Mature? _Mature?_ I’m married to a dude! And it’s _Cas!_ ”

Cas looks like he’s trying to shrink into the mattress, which has Dean backtracking even before Sam’s admonishing, “Dean, quit being a dick, wow.”

“I’m sorry, am I supposed to be calm about this? How did this—where did we—” He looks to Cas desperately. “You didn’t stop this? Like, did you stop _once_ to think this might be a shitty idea?”

“I too was inebriated,” Cas murmurs, picking at a thread on the comforter and his eyes downcast. “It seemed like quite a good idea at the time.”

“And I don’t remember _any_ of it? Like, you’d think I’d maybe remember something like that, I dunno.”

Sam’s being very mature about this whole thing, much to Dean’s surprise; he hasn’t poked fun at him once, maybe realizing the spiral of panic that Dean’s gone into, and Dean appreciates his sensitivity because wow.  _Wow_.

“You also don’t remember the last week,” Cas points out, still not meeting Dean’s eyes.

“Yeah, thanks. And there’s no way that’s alcohol-induced.” He looks at Cas again, a strange tingle working its way up his spine. “We didn’t do anything, right? I mean, like, um…”

“No.” Cas’ answer is firm but he’s pointedly staring at the wall, his cheeks a bit ruddy and his mouth pinched.

“Are you lying to me, Cas?”

“Would I lie about something like this?” Cas asks, his eyes tearing to Dean’s for the first time.

“Yeah, you would.”

“I’m not lying,” Cas says through clenched teeth, although his cheeks are still flushed and his hands are fiddling nervously with the hem of his borrowed shirt.

“Yeah, okay, we’ll see about that. Can you just…” Dean sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a deep breath. He’s married. To Castiel. Ex-angel, best friend, grumpy, brave, stupid Cas. What the hell would his dad say? “Can you just fill me in on what happened?”

“I too was pretty drunk,” Cas confesses, sitting a bit straighter. “But I can try.”

\--

Dean had shown Castiel how to shoot craps and how to play blackjack, obviously way more engaged in it than Castiel was. In fact, Castiel can’t even remember now all that he’d learned, as he hadn’t really taken to it even despite Dean’s enthusiasm. And he’d been pretty drunk. Most of the night is a blur anyway.

“Where’s Sam?” Castiel asked sometime later, scouring the casino, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Dean had leaned over to show him a text.

“ _Met a girl. Out for the night. Car is urs._ ”

“Ah,” Castiel said delicately.

“Sammy’s a wily fox,” Dean said, and his eyes were bright and his smile so wide it looked like it ached. He looked happier than Castiel had seen him in ages.

“You’re in a good mood,” Castiel said.

Dean shrugged and stumbled a little, taking Castiel by the wrist and pulling him away from the blackjack table. “Hey, I got you and Sammy here with me, right? That’s all I need. You wanna go to a party? There’s one just a few miles away, I heard, they’ve got live music n’ everything.”

Castiel frowned. “Are you okay to drive?”

“Course I am,” Dean said with a slight hiccup. “’m totally fine.”

Castiel doesn’t remember much after that; everything had felt a little like it was happening in an altered state of being. He remembers thinking how differently his night would’ve gone if he’d went home with that woman, and wondered a lot why he didn’t resent Dean for scaring her off.

After an incredibly precarious drive, they’d parked lopsided and sideways nearby to the venue and clambered out of the car, grinning and sort of leaning on each other, and Castiel didn’t know anything could be as warm as Dean pressed into his side. The planes of his cheekbones had sort of a high flush, his eyes a frenzied bright color, the myriads of freckles on his nose crinkling when he laughed—

\--

“Dude.”

“Apologies.”

\--

The party had been wild; too wild for Castiel’s taste, but Dean seemed to like it. There were half-dressed women dancing everywhere, men grinding their pelvises from behind, and the music pounded loudly and painfully in Castiel’s ears, multicolored lights flaring behind his eyes. The whole place smelled strongly of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and cheap perfume.

“This is the life, Cas,” Dean had said with an elbow to his side and a grin.

“You just lost five hundred dollars gambling, Dean.”

“Yeah, welp, you can’t have everything. You want more drinks?”

Castiel was at the point where somewhere, deep down, he knew more drinks was a _very_ bad idea, but he was in a sort of dizzy and happy place and Dean was so _warm_ so he said yes. Dean said, “Wait here,” and loped off to order drinks at the packed bar, where drunk women coated with sticky glitter hung their arms around men, kissing deep and drunken and wantonly.

Castiel watched these displays with detached curiosity and glanced away as Dean came back, three shots pinched in his fingers on either hand and his eyebrows peaked with delight. “C’mon, Cas, bottoms up.”

Castiel took a deep breath, as he truly despised the taste of alcohol, no matter how drunk he was, and knocked them back in one go, feeling a strange buzzing fill his ears and the world tip a bit as he did so.

“Whoa,” he breathed as his belly seemed to warm from within, and it was like someone else had said it. Holy shit, he liked alcohol.

“Thatta boy!” Dean said affectionately, and downed his. “ _Whoo,_ that’s got a kick.”

            “Dean.” Castiel felt himself stumble, his legs wooden and numb beneath him. His stomach was sort of churning. “I think I need to go outside.”

            “You sick?” Dean asked with instant concern, discarding the empty shot-glasses on a nearby table in favor of bracing both his hands on his shoulders. His touch seared. “Cas, buddy? You have too much?”

            “No, I’m fine,” Castiel heard himself say. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.” There was a woman heading over to them with a cat-like look in her eyes, her lips pursed, and Castiel stared at her dumbly until she winked and blew him a kiss. “I think that woman wants to fornicate with me.”

            Dean sighed, took Castiel by the arm, and dragged him out the front door, past four men smoking weed who shot them hostile, suspicious looks.

            “Here, there’s a bench over here, just sit down.”

            It was much cooler than it was earlier, and Castiel felt his head clear a little as he took deep breaths. He could feel Dean rubbing soothing circles on his back, coursing in soft paths over his shoulder blades.

            “Dean, can I ask you a question?” Castiel asked, but he didn’t want to ask it; it was like his mouth was running away from him, tugging things from his brain and letting words spill out between them. Fuck it, he was drunk. He didn’t care.

            “Anything, Cas.”

            “Why did you scare that woman off me tonight?”

\--

            “You might want to leave, Sam,” Castiel says without looking up from the mattress.

            “What, why? The story was just getting good.”

            “I feel Dean may be uncomfortable with you hearing the details of this conversation.”

            Sam shoots Dean an incredulous look, but Dean nods at him. His face is already on fire. “C’mon, Sam.”

            “Dean,” Sam protests, but Dean has his head bowed and he says, “ _Please,”_ in a mortified voice, and Sam sighs and stalks out with a belligerent glance backwards.

            “Please tell me I didn’t say anything too bad,” Dean mutters, folding his face in his hands. His cheeks are hot against his clammy palms.

            “No,” Cas says, gently. “It was me, mostly.”

\--

            Dean shrugged, tipping and pressing into Castiel’s side like he was seeking warmth or shelter. “I dunno.”

            “You must’ve had a reason. You were so intent on us coming here, it was odd that you didn’t want me to sleep with her.”

            “I didn’t like her.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because she was all over you.”

            “Yes, you said. But….but, I mean, but why did you care?”

            Dean’s eyes were closed sleepily, and he was sort of rocking himself into Cas. His next words were a mumble. “I was jealous.”

            “You’ve been with plenty of women, Dean.”

            “No,” Dean whispered, barely audible in the roaring sound of cars rushing past, and he opened his eyes to gaze at Cas. His profile was highlighted in neon, glassing his eyes in pink light. “I was jealous of _her_.”

            Castiel frowned at this, trying to process Dean’s words. His heartbeat was already pounding hard in his ears, because he thought he maybe knew what that meant. But surely not from someone like Dean?

            “Why?”

            “Because, Cas,” Dean said with a soft hitch in his voice. “You deserve someone who loves you for your first time, your first relationship. You deserve more than that. You deserve a lot more than that.”

            They were staring at each other now, something coiled and unspoken shifting between them. They were so close, and Castiel’s pulse was a resounding, frantic drumbeat in his head, his chest radiating with the force of it.

            “She shouldn’t get to touch you,” Dean muttered. “That’s…”

            “What?”

            Dean shook his head.

            “No, what, Dean?”

            “ _I_ should be the one touching you,” Dean said, and Castiel’s breath stuck somewhere in his throat. Dean wouldn’t meet his eyes, his gaze shifting a bit dazedly along the street. “That should be me. I don’t want you to want anyone else.”

            Dean’s hand had wired itself on Castiel’s thigh—when did that happen?—and his gaze was now a heavy presence, eyes wide and vulnerable and fixed on Castiel’s.

            Castiel didn’t have a clue what to say, but his voice was already making the move for him. He said, meaning it, “I don’t.”

            Dean released a slow breath, like he’d been holding it caged in his ribs. “Okay. So, we’re, that’s….okay.”

            “I didn’t like that girl,” Castiel murmured. “I didn’t. But I knew that you would never…I’ve known for a long time that we could never, that you wouldn’t….”

            “Long time?” Dean asked, slurring a bit and his eyes widening fractionally. “How long’s a long time?”

            Castiel closed his eyes and tried to think. “I…can’t remember. I can’t remember feeling another way.”

            “Fuck, shit, _fuck,_ Cas. Fuck.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “What am I supposed to do?” Dean asked, tipping his throat back to expose it to the heavens. “We can’t just….I’m not _gay._ I’m not gay, Cas, I’m not gay.”

            “I know you’re not, Dean.”

            “Then why the _fuck_ am I in love with you or something?”

\--

            “Oh my God.”

            “Just. Just bear with me, Dean.”

            “No, I’m leaving. Holy fucking Christ.”

            “Dean,” Cas snaps, standing and knotting his fists, and for a post-nerdy dude with wings, he looks pretty fucking aggressive. “Shut up and listen. You owe me that much.”

            Dean’s sort of got his head cupped in his hands and he’s staring at Cas with bulging eyes. “Are you making this up?”

            Cas blows out a quick, impatient sigh. “Why the hell would I do that?”

            “Okay.” Dean nods, processing this, trying to breathe normally. “Okay. Keep going.”

\--

            “I can’t be,” Dean continued furiously. “You know what my dad would do to me? He’d tear me a new asshole, oh my God. And what would _Sam_ say? Oh God, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

            “Dean,” Castiel said, and his whole being felt alight, like some starry thing had shifted inside him into the right alignment. “Dean, calm down.”

            “I can’t be in love with you,” Dean was saying through panicked hiccups. “You always leave, don’t you _get_ it? You don’t need me, you always _leave_.”

            “Dean.” Castiel felt like things were sort of spiraling away from his grasp, like someone put him and Dean in a top and let them spin. “Dean, please look at me.”

            Dean shook his head.

            “Dean.”

            Dean finally looked at him, and Castiel saw something innocent and naïve and _terrified_ there.

            “Look at me.” Castiel placed both hands over either of Dean’s ears and pulled him forward, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Do I look like I’m leaving you? Like I could even try?”

\--

            “And then what happened?”

            “We got married.”

            Dean glares at him. “Right, just like that? Nothing happened after that.”

            Cas has a shitty poker face. “No.”

            “We made out, didn’t we?”

\--

            Okay, so maybe Dean had sort of grabbed Castiel’s face at that and pulled him into a searing if sloppy kiss. Their noses banged a little uncomfortably and there was a lot of stubble scraping like sandpaper and Dean’s hands were kind of rucked up Castiel’s shirt, and Castiel possibly has nail-marks still carved into his back, but yeah, they made out for a good five minutes until Castiel had Dean horizontal on the bench, pressed into the open V of his legs.

\--

            “Oh, _God,_ ” Dean groans, banging his head back into the wall. “Please spare me the details.”

            Cas sort of shrugs and says, “I’d rather not.”

\--

            “You better not leave me, you fucker,” Dean had more teethed rather than spoke into the junction of Castiel’s neck and shoulder, shifting lower to suck a hickey onto his collarbone. “I swear to God, Cas— _Cas—_ ”

            “I won’t leave you,” Castiel said, frantically tonguing kisses down Dean’s neck. “I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you—” It became sort of a litany until Dean was flushed and arching beneath him, his eyes glazed over and his lips dark and swollen.

            “Cas,” Dean said through broken gasps, _“Cas,_ marry me.”

\--

            Dean sighs. “Fuck.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Did I really?”

            “Yes.”

\--

            “I’ll do anything you want,” Castiel promised, pulling back and staring at Dean wide-eyed. “We can get married. Whatever you want, Dean.”

            “Tonight,” Dean said, sitting up under Cas, his shirt askew and his hair fucked to hell. “Let’s do it tonight.”

            “Is that really a good idea?”

            “Who fucking cares?”

            “Yeah, good point.” And they’d sort of drifted into each other, like two satellites pulled into orbit around each other—

\--

            “Good _God,_ when does it stop.”

            “Shortly after. After taking instruction from the weed-smokers, you rather unwisely got into the Impala and drove us to the nearest marriage institution. Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I suggested inviting Sam, but you said he would laugh at you. You were quite emphatic on that point, actually. The church had a pastor to give us for the night and tuxes for us to borrow. You had your mother’s wedding ring, which I, er, now wear, I suppose, and the church offered us a makeshift one which we sort of forgot to give back.”

            “And shaboom, it happened. We got married?”

\--

            “Do you, Dean Winchester, take Castiel to be your lawful and wedded husband?”

            “Uh, yeah, sure.”

            “Do you promise to be true in good times and bad, in sickness and—”

            “Yeah, yeah, alright? Yes.”

            The priest had his lips pressed together like he was trying really hard not to laugh, as if it weren’t already obvious Dean and Cas were drunk out of their minds. That probably lent excuse to the er, physical reaction Castiel may or may not be had to the sight of Dean in a tux, his hair rumpled and eyes sort of semi-bright and looking really fucking blissfully, truly _happy_.

            “Do you have anything you would like to say to the groom in lieu of vows?”

            “Um.” Dean sort of cleared his throat and shuffled his feet, his sweaty hands slipping in Castiel’s, squeezing and tightening his fingers. “Look, Cas, you’re my best friend basically ever and we’ve been through a lot of shit together and somehow you’re still here and you’re like family and all that shit and I need you, alright?”

            “Beautifully put,” the priest remarked with definite sarcasm, and Dean nodded proudly. “Castiel, do you take Dean Winchester to be your lawful and wedded husband?”

            Castiel nodded. “I do.”

            “Do you promise to be true to him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health?”

            “I do.”

            “Will you love him and and honor him all the days of your life?”

            “I will.”

            “Such a good Catholic,” Dean said with an indulgent roll of his eyes. He added to the priest, “He’s a little angel, isn’t he?” to which Castiel glared daggers.

            “I suppose,” the priest said. “Well, without further ado, by the power invested in me and the Lord our Father—”

            “Screw God,” Dean said in that usual profound way of his, and he grabbed Castiel by the lapel and pulled him in for a warm kiss. Random people in the audience clapped politely as the priest continued, with a marked increase in exasperation, “I now present Mr. and Mr. Dean and Castiel Winchester.”

\--

            “Well, fuck me in the ass.”

            Castiel pointedly flattens his mouth and keeps a straight face.

            “Oh God, you didn’t, did you?”

            “No. We didn’t, erm—”

            “Do the do?”

            Cas rolls his eyes and glares. “You kind of passed out, Dean.”

            Sam at that moment re-enters the room with a semi-loud bang and glares at them suspiciously. “I don’t care, I’m coming in for the rest of this story. You’ve kicked me out long enough.”

            “Well,” Cas says, folding his hands in his lap, “the story’s over, mostly. We found the nearest motel and we rented a room because we were exhausted and drunk. I found Dean unconscious in the bathroom, so I dragged him into bed. That’s all that happened.”

            Dean’s got his eyes narrowed as Castiel looks at him innocently, and he mouths, _“bullshit,”_ where Sam can’t see because there’s no way in hell that that’s the whole story.

            “You found Dean passed out in the bathroom?” Sam echoes. “And you didn’t think to question it?”

            “No. I assumed it was alcohol-induced.”

            “But what if it _wasn’t_? I mean, Dean’s got his entire memory bank wiped from the last _week._ Something must’ve happened when Cas was looking the other direction.”

            “Well,” Dean says, “can you think of anything weird that might’ve gone down?”

            Sam shakes his head. “No.” Then after a moment, his eyes sort of widen. “Wait a minute. Yeah. Now that you mention it, there was that really sketchy girl at the casino. She knew you and Cas by name, remember?”

            “Oh yeah, I forgot about her.” Dean looks to Cas questioningly. “You think she’s got something to do with this?”

            Cas frowns. “It’s quite possible. But even if she does, there’s no possible way to find her.”

            “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Sam straightens and squares his shoulders. “I say we go back to the casino and look around tonight, sans alcohol. Maybe we can dig up some dirt on her.”

            Dean nods. “Sounds good.” He looks back to Cas, awkwardly. “Well, thanks for the storytime, I guess. Um.”

            “You guys make the cutest couple,” Sam croons from the doorway, and Dean and Cas both glower at him. “Oh, come on. You seriously aren’t allowing me to have _any_ fun with this? You guys are lawfully married, for Christ’s sake.”

            “So far it’s been nothing but newlywed bliss,” Dean mutters.

            “Well, it’s not that pleasant being married to you, either,” Cas says petulantly, standing from the bed again and shooting an irritated glance sideways at Dean.

            “Trouble in paradise?” Sam asks.

            “Shut up, Sam,” Dean and Cas say with equal amounts of annoyance.

            “We’re getting divorced first thing,” Dean says firmly, and fuck, oh _fuck,_ why does that feel _wrong_ to him? Why is there a quiet, protesting voice in the back of his head that warns him that Cas may be the only thing he’s done right?

            “Yes,” Cas agrees with equal conviction, but his eyes are on the floor and he’s got his hands jammed in his jean pockets, a lock of hair falling almost dejectedly into his eyes.

            “Alright,” Sam says with a sigh. “Although it would’ve been a lot more convenient for Cas’ legal documents if you two just stayed married. For identification purposes.”

            Dean and Cas remain silent.

            “Cas Winchester,” Sam says contemplatively into the silence. “Too bad. I kinda liked the sound of it.” He leaves Dean in silent, confused agreement, and the two of them stuck with their own silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter, stick with me, guys! Hope you're enjoying so far. :') (Also idk what the hell is going on with indentations sorry)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets his memories back, much to Cas' chagrin and Dean's...interest?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter. The first part is plotty and indulgent but oh well. (Also this is kind of a long chapter, which means there's a likelier chance I missed mistakes on the read-through, so please let me know if you catch any!)

Sam drives to the casino, given Dean no longer knows the way there. The ride there is quiet and awkward, to say the least. Sam keeps clamping and reclamping his hands on the wheel, opening his mouth every once in a while to say something before he locks his jaw and sort of twitches his eyebrows in that stupid expressive way he has. Then he'll clear his throat and say nothing.

Dean's replaying Sam and Cas' accounts over and over again, searching for some sort of loophole. Surely he couldn't have said all the shit he did to Cas? But Cas had mentioned his dad, stupid details like that, stuff that Dean wouldn't put past himself to mention while he's drunk as hell.

Dean fiddles with the silver ring on his finger, twisting it and making out the smudgy reflections in the silver. He sort of wants to ask for his mom's wedding ring back from Cas, but that seems cruel and besides, a part of him wants Cas to keep it. Cas is a part of the Winchester family as much as any other, and he deserves some sort of keepsake to show he belongs.

After what seems like hours, Sam pulls into the parking lot around back and stops the car with a soft grumble.

"There's a good chance she won't be here," Sam says, like a warning, "or that she doesn't have anything to do with it."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean mutters, and stalks ahead so he won't have to hear him. Nothing about this place looks familiar, which is more than a little eerie for him.

When the three of them walk in, people cast them stares--they're not really dressed for the occasion, after all, and Cas has this adorable way of putting people off within a twenty foot radius.

"Do you see her anywhere?" Dean asks Sam, because he has no fucking clue what they're looking for. There are lots of people milling about, laughing and getting drinks or crowding around the blackjack tables to pool money.

"No." Sam huffs out a short breath as his narrowed eyes scan the clusters of people--before they halt and widen. "There. Fuck, that's her. Right there."

Dean follows Sam's gaze and sees a girl sitting alone at the bar, straw-blond hair piled into a messy bun on the top of her head as she cleans something out of her braces. She looks, almost impossibly, even more out of place than they do.

Dean takes an aggressive step toward her and Sam grabs his arm in caution. "Dean. You can't just go up and attack her. We'll get kicked out. Let's just do this calmly, alright?"

Dean nods tightly and he feels Cas draw closer to his side, a steady, warm presence that's entirely and uncomfortably too familiar.

Sam straightens and smooths a hand through his hair before he moves toward the girl, cutting through throngs of people in the process. Dean and Cas follow after; he can feel Cas throwing anxious glances his way, like he's memorizing Dean's face or something.

The girl's eyes are drifting lazily over the clusters of people before she spots Sam, then Dean and Cas--her eyes bulge almost comically and she leaps up, grabbing her purse, but Sam's quicker. He shackles her wrist in a gentle but unbreakable grasp under the bar where the bartender won't see and she struggles, thrashing to get out of his grip.

"Shh, shh," Sam says, "calm down. We just want to talk."

"Yeah, and figure out how you fucked with my head," Dean snaps, and the girl's terrified gaze flicks to him. Dean smiles, sardonically, and he waggles his fingers. "Hi, I'm Dean."

"I know who you are," the girl protests, and her voice is mousy and shrill. "Just let me go!"

"Not until we get answers."

The girl runs her tongue over her braces and grimaces. "What kind of answers?"

"Outside," Sam says quietly. "Now."

With her wrist still in Sam's grip, the girl hangs her head and follows the three of them out of the casino; Dean almost rolls his eyes when he sees tears collecting in the corners of her eyes.

"Look, drop the act," Dean says as soon as they're out of the casino. "We know you did something to me, so just fess up."

The girl is frozen stock-still, her knees wobbling and her lower lip quivering. She shakes her head, her bun wobbling tremulously as she does so.

"Sam, search her bag," Dean says.

"What?" the girl squeaks. "No, you can't do that!" She makes a grab for it, but once again, Sam beats her to the punch, whisking the bag out of her grip and digging his hand inside. His face changes considerably when his fingers locate something, his eyebrows dropping into a frown and his lips pursing.

A moment later he pulls out a hexbag. "Really? Witchcraft?"

"I _knew_ it," Dean says, moving toward her angrily, but Cas grabs him by the elbow and the girl shrieks and cowers.

Sam frowns at him. "No, you didn't _know_ it."

"Yeah, well, I suspected."

"Look," the girl says, and she's shaking badly in Sam's grasp. "I can explain, okay?"

"Get talking," Dean says flatly. "We usually don't give witches this long to explain themselves, so count yourself lucky."

"Okay, okay." The girl takes a deep breath and looks around at the crowded street, at the sporadic groups of people going in and out of the casino. "Can we go someplace more private?"

A few minutes later, they're standing in the back parking lot and the girl is staring reverently at the Impala like it's a fucking holy shrine.

"Like the car?" Dean asks incredulously.

"'67 Chevy Impala," the girl breathes. Dean frowns in disbelief. _T_ _his_ girl knows cars?

"Um, yeah…"

"Okay." The girl takes a gulping breath. "Okay, let me start at the beginning. Just…don't kill me, okay?"

Sam nods and Dean shrugs noncommittally.

"Do you guys, um, know Becky Rosen?"

Sam's face drops comically and Dean tilts his head back and groans. Cas manages to look more confused.

"I should've known you came from her breed of crazy," Dean complains. "What, are you a psycho-fan too?"

"We're not _psycho_ fans," the girl replies with a bite of ire. "We're devoted."

"For Christ's sake."

"Just hear me out, alright?" The girl sucks in another deep breath. "My name is Tildy Breckenridge. Becky is my best friend. I'm the one who introduced her to the _Supernatural_ books in the first place, actually. Then all this crazy stuff happened; she started dating the author, for one, before he dropped off the face of the planet. And she was saying all this crazy stuff." Tildy looks at them, half-awed, half-disgruntled. "Stuff about how the characters were real. And how she'd _met_ them."

Dean grunts and Sam is shifting uncomfortably.

"Now the details she was giving me, I knew they couldn't be fake; stuff like your last names, what you looked like, things you'd said, things you'd done. And Becky's my best friend. So I started believing her, right? We sort of got into this thing where we'd get together and talk about the books and….eventually, it went a little further."

"The witchcraft," Dean supplies with a disapproving shake of his head.

"We just wanted to try it for fun. We didn't think anything would actually come out of it, you know? Becky got bored with it real fast, but I stuck with it when I found out I was able to…. _do_ stuff. She didn't really care that I was a witch, she just told me to be careful and stuff. Things kind of changed in our friendship when she found Chuck's unpublished two books and leaked them, well, because…"

"Because why?" Dean demands.

"We….had a disagreement of sorts. You see, Becky's a hardcore Wincest shipper."

Dean feels his nose wrinkle. "A _what_ now? Win…?"

"Like, you and Sam, together."

Sam and Dean exchange uncomfortable, exasperated looks.

"Now, I appreciate the just-brothers thing, and I could see where Becky was coming from, seriously I could. But she started getting really pushy about it, especially after Castiel was introduced into the books."

"What's Cas got to do with anything?" Dean asks as Cas shuffles next to him.

A dark flush creeps up Tildy's neck. "Well, um, that's where we fell out, Becky and me. We couldn't see eye-to-eye on ships."

Dean stares at her blankly for a few minutes until Sam rolls his eyes and says, "She means you and Cas, Dean."

"That's a thing? Like that's an actual _thing_? Why am I involved in all these weird fan _things?_ I'm not gay!"

Cas coughs which earns him an irritated elbow to the ribs.

"I was just coughing, Dean!"

"Yeah, sure."

"I'm in Vegas because I'm meeting an RP partner from Tumblr. We're doing a Vegas AU thing for Night Vale. We agreed to meet in one of the casinos for authenticity, but she was a no-show last night. Bailed last minute and said she'd meet me tonight. But last night I was nearby Sam and I heard him talking to you two and I just _knew,_ I knew Becky had been right all along." Tildy lowers her eyes and scuffles her feet with a sharp crackle on the pavement.

"So you put a love-whammy on us," Dean says in sudden realization. "You hexed Cas and me to marry each other, didn't you?"

Cas shoots him an angry, hurt look, and Dean pretends he doesn't see it.

Tildy's eyes widen in astonishment. "What? No! I wouldn't do that, I swear!"

Dean huffs out a short, "Huh."

"But I couldn't resist following up. I saw the way you two were acting, and I followed you guys to the party. You guys started making out and--"

"What?" Sam interjects, his eyes widening with delight. "Seriously?"

Dean scowls at him.

"And I knew I couldn't resist rubbing it in Becky's face," Tildy says, lowering her gaze as if in shame. "She'd been so _pushy_ about it, and we'd been friends for so long. I just wanted to prove it to her, she'd see I was right, and then we could move on. I followed you guys again to the church--"

"You mean you _stalked_ us."

"They don't call me a Dean!stan for nothing," Tildy says as if an attempt at a joke, but her voice falls miserably flat.

" _Stan?_ "

"Stalker-fan," Sam supplies.

"...you worry me, Sam."

"I followed you back to the motel." Tildy sounds like she's on the verge of tears. "You guys were kind of getting pretty heated in the car, and--"

Dean frowns. He doesn't remember that part of the story. He turns to glare at Cas, who has his mouth flattened into a thin line, and he returns Dean's look innocently.

"--so I went around the side of the building to the room I knew you guys would be staying in. There's a window in the bathroom where I could see what was going on. Then Dean came into the bathroom and saw me and was like," her voice drops into a gravelly impersonation, "'hey! The fuck are you doing?'"

Tildy's pale fingers toy with a fraying flap on her jeans. "I….I panicked, okay? I tried to do a basic memory spell that would erase the last five minutes of your short-term memory, so you could forget you ever saw me. But I freaked out and accidentally overdid it."

"And wiped the last week," Dean finishes.

"I didn't mean to! I'm still learning all the witch stuff. And then you passed out, and…I ran." Tears are welling up in Tildy's eyes again. "Are you going to kill me?"

Dean growls, "Maybe," and Sam says, sharply and admonishingly, "Dean."

"What? This girl stalked us to get her freak on and then mind-whammied me! She's not getting off scot-free, no way in hell."

"Dean," Sam says in a shocked kind of voice. "She's just a _kid._ "

"Well, consider this a parental intervention." Dean straightens and glares at Tildy. "Just…first off, stop reading gay porn about me on the internet, alright?"

Tildy gazes at him solemnly. "I won't make promises I can't keep."

"Ugh. Gross."

"Besides," Tildy says, tipping her chin up a little. "You guys are canon now. I was right all along, and the fandom deserves to know."

"Yeah, that's not happening. You're deleting all of the footage you probably took on your phone. That's requirement numero uno."

Tildy sulks.

"Requirement two: cut the witchcraft. I mean, seriously? You read all of our little adventures and it didn't teach you _one_ thing about getting involved with that kind of shit?"

"It's not as bad as you guys make it seem," Tildy counters. "Not all of us are evil."

"You're selling your soul over to hell." Dean raises his eyebrows. "Did you read the books?"

Tildy nods, her glassy gray eyes wide and her face ashen.

"Let me tell you, sweetheart, hell is not a place you want to be. Stop while you have the chance."

"Yeah, but Cas pulled you out," Tildy says reverently, and Dean grimaces and says, "Yeah, yeah, okay. We're not getting into that."

"So you're not going to kill me?" Tildy asks, relaxing considerably.

"No, but we might have to if you don't stop. Tildy, you're the kind of thing we _hunt._ "

Tildy bobs her head quickly, her eyes widening again. "Okay, I'll stop. I swear."

"Good. One more thing for good before you quit, though." Dean takes a deep breath, and is surprised by the conviction he feels. "I want my memories back."

Cas frowns at him in alarm from his peripheral vision. "Dean, are you sure?"

"Hell yeah I'm sure. You think I'm trusting your and Sam's accounts?"

Tildy nods. "Yeah, okay. I think I can do that. It might be…overwhelming, though. That's a whole week of memories that's gonna come bouncing back."

"Sweetheart, I've had worse."

"One sec, I've got to find the right spell." And in public she whips out from her bag a black, satanic-looking book embossed with golden Latin letters; Sam and Dean practically flinch as she starts rifling through it murmuring, "Memory restoration, memory restoration…."

Cas is suddenly close to his ear, a pulse of warm breath on the side of his neck as he says, quietly, "I only hope this won't alter our relationship too thoroughly, Dean. I understand you regret what happened last night but please try to…"

"I know, Cas," Dean says with a reassuring squeeze to Cas' shoulder. "I get it, alright? I can handle my own choices."

Cas swallows and gazes at Dean for a long time, his eyes narrowing, before he nods and steps back. Then, quietly so Sam can't hear, he confesses, "I don't regret what happened, Dean. Please respect that."

Something ties Dean's throat up, nice and tight. "Yeah, Cas. I will, 'course."

"Found it," Tildy says. "Are you ready?"

Dean nods, straightens his shoulders, takes a deep breath. Sam's let go of Tildy and is gazing at Dean in rising concern as Tildy starts to chant in a way that would surely draw stares if there were more people around. 

Dean chokes out a hitched noise as images, sounds, colors start rising behind his eyes, pouring into him with the force of a train. Eventually, he cries out and grips his head; he must have gone to his knees because he hears Cas saying wildly, "Dean? _Dean!_ " and he feels Cas' strong hands gripping his shoulders, shaking him, and Sam is talking fast to Tildy, his voice harsh with angry concern; that's all he hears before he blacks out the present world.

\---

The memories stir quickly, flowing back to him in a rush; the earlier days of the week, watching movies with Cas, chatting with Sam and Kevin till two in the morning on a Tuesday, sleeping fitfully each night. Certain random instances dredge up too, like driving with Cas to the supermarket or getting into a fake scuffle with Sam on Wednesday afternoon. Soon, the memories start to slow, spanning out into richer color, more vivid detail the more clearly he remembers them.

Driving to Vegas, Sam bitching about the music, Cas cuddled up like a kitten in the backseat, arriving at the motel, heading out to the casino. The memories drag now, playing out like films before his eyes; but they're mostly impressions and emotions rather than visual memories. White hot washes of anger and jealousy at the sight of Cas talking to the girl at the bar, confusion upon tracking the source of the jealousy. Contentment when he pulls Cas away to gamble, and the memories take on sort of a hazy glow the drunker he gets. Cas looks at him throughout the night all big and shiny-eyed, like Dean is the fucking sun or something, and every time he catches Cas looking at him it sparks a hot flare of _something_ in his gut. Happiness, desire, fondness? He can't tell.

The memories are even clearer now as he and Cas head off to the party; Dean accredits this to his constant attempts to remember the happy moments he has with Cas, because there usually are never enough of them. He takes Cas outside, sits them on the bench. They talk, drunken and intimate and fast.

"Then why the fuck am I in love with you or something?"

So he had said that. A few other things pass between them and the next thing he knows he and Cas are at it, and man, it's one thing to hear Cas awkwardly describe it, but it's a completely different thing to experience it himself. It's…electric, like all the right pieces are slotting into place. Cas has him on his back, straddling his hips, murmuring promises into his skin, and Dean _feels_ it, a starburst of joy so bright it flares behind his eyes, brighter even than the neon lights on the street. He says in this delirious state, " _Cas,_ marry me," because it feels like the most appropriate thing he can possibly say.

Cas' eyes, brilliant and luminous, shocked and pleased, and how the fuck could Dean ever deny him this?

The actual wedding isn't even the important part, not in Dean's memories. Cas is fucking beaming in his stupid tux and his stupid bowtie telling Dean he'll honor him forever and all that shit and Dean comes to the terrifying epiphany that even drunk, he knew _exactly_ what he was doing. He _wanted_ this.

The memories continue to play out, and Dean's starting to realize Cas omitted some things, probably out of consideration for his sake. After turning in their rental tuxes, Dean, fucking idiot he is, drives the Impala to the nearest Super 8, a glowing beacon not two blocks from the church. They park in the parking lot and he and Cas just stare at each other for a long time.

"Will this mean anything to you in the morning?" Cas asks, tilting his head, and something about that just cuts Dean to the quick. Fuck, he's messed this shit up _big_ time. He owes Cas one hell of an apology.

"Of course it will," he hears himself saying. "We're freaking _married_ , aren't we?"

Cas sort of smiles, a close-lipped, warm thing. "Is this our honeymoon, then? Isn't that what you call it?"

"A shitty dump of a motel in Las Vegas. Wouldn't have had it any other way."

"Did you know the word 'honeymoon' derives from the idea of the father providing a month's worth of sweet mead for the--"

"God, shut the fuck up and get over here, Cas."

Cas sort of leans his head forward as if he's uncertain where he's going, what he's doing, and Dean rolls his eyes and fists the collar of Cas' borrowed, oversized flannel shirt, hauling him in for a kiss. Cas sort of lets out this wounded, startled whimper when their lips touch, like he's never been touched before, and something about this prompts Dean to tug at Cas fiercely, dragging him across the middle console so he's straddling his lap.

Cas looks down at him, his eyes quicksilver in the moonlight, and his hair is sort of crushed against the ceiling of the car because wow, the Impala is good for a lot of things but makeout sessions isn't one of them.

Dean reaches up and pulls him in; it's nothing dirty or quick or fast, it's slow, chaste brushstrokes of kisses, because he and Cas have all the time in the world, don't they? Dean threads his fingers through Cas' hair, tightening and tugging, and Cas chokes out a hitched groan and tilts his head back into Dean's grasp so Dean can tattoo kisses up the column of his throat. Cas is unabashed, his eyes wide and glazed and the ragged cadence of his breathing filling the whole car, and Dean is addicted to that instantly; there's no self-consciousness with Cas, no regulation of his own reactions. Every intake of breath, every low groan is entirely unhindered, raw.

Dean's definitely hard in his jeans, achingly so, but he's not pushing for anything, not if Cas doesn't want it. He's still pretty new to the humanity thing, after all. However, Cas is writhing impatiently on Dean's lap, which leads him to believe Cas is more starved for this than he would have initially given him credit for.

"Dean," he grits out, rolling his hips harshly so Dean bucks up against him with a truncated choking noise. "What's that tradition about wedding nights?"

"Ummm," Dean says incoherently because Cas plants one hand on the ceiling of the Impala and uses it to push his weight down, grinding hard, and Dean gasps and fucking _whines_ and loses all train of thought.

In a surprisingly tender change of pace, Cas cups his hands around Dean's jawbone and kisses him deeply and without remorse, so open and unabashed that Dean is fucking _ashamed_ of the shit he put Cas through this morning, because hell, he doesn't think anyone has treated him as lovingly, as gently, as this stupid ex-angel does.

He doesn't deserve any of this. Not one fucking bit of it.

"Hey," Cas says, almost in reprimand, and he holds Dean's face in the bracket of his palms. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"You don't think you're worth this. I can read it off you."

"I thought you didn't read minds anymore."

"I don't have to." Cas does another one of those dumb tender forehead kisses that makes Dean want to cry like a two-year-old. "If we, um, perhaps want to continue this, maybe the car isn't the best place to do it when there's a bed inside."

"You trashing on Baby?"

"I figure you'd have the divorce papers filed before I could get a word in edgewise about her."

"So, so very true."

They sort of clamber out of the car, embarrassingly turned on and clinging onto each other and both of their hair looking like they went ten rounds with a porn star, but they stumble into the motel as civilly as they can. Dean gets the creeping feeling someone's watching him on the way in--he's always had an instinct for that kind of thing--which of course now he knows was absolutely correct.

"Room for two," he says to the woman at the front desk, and she eyes them both knowingly before she hands them a key and points down the hallway.

Dean and Cas barely make in through the front door before Dean has Cas slammed into the wall; and this is desperate, frantic, hands under shirts and dipping in the waistbands of pants, fiddling with belt buckles until Cas has his legs locked around Dean's waist, pinned to the wall by the traction of their hips. Dean hitches Cas' shirt up and off and sucks a bruising kiss to the tip of a sigil scar on Cas' chest; he hears the hollow slam of Cas' head into the wall as he groans out in breathless shock, _"Dean._ "

Dean grins as Cas pistons into him, desperate for friction, and he murmurs into his collarbone, "Slow down," and laughs as he hears Cas' responding, indignant huff.

"Dean," Cas says in a pissy growl that goes straight south. "Quit teasing me."

Dean chuckles again and tilts his hips, causing them both to shudder and convulse a bit, and for a moment, Dean's terrified and confused and lost because this? This is completely new. Dean doesn't do marriage, doesn't do _guys,_ doesn't do long-term stuff. This could fuck everything up if it goes wrong, everything he and Cas have worked and bled and lost for.

"Dean?" Cas pants in confusion as Dean slows down. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fucking scared, Cas," Dean says, and maybe it's because he's still a bit drunk that he outright says it. "I'm scared of whatever this is."

Cas slides his cheek along Dean's and presses a gentle kiss to the underside of Dean's jaw. "Don't be."

"I can't help it. I'm just…I don't know if I can…"

"Dean," Cas says firmly, carding a hand gingerly through his hair and pressing his forehead against Dean's. "Do you think I know how to do relationships either? I was a soldier for longer than you can even conceive of--a different _species._ I know nothing about human relationships."

"Ew, you cougar."

Cas bites on his earlobe playfully in punishment, but it only succeeds in causing Dean to buck under Cas' weight with a stifled groan.

Dean tentatively kisses Cas again, soft and hesitant and questioning, and Cas eagerly opens for it, a whisper of breath and a quiet murmur of, "I love you, Dean."

And well, that kind of…changes everything. Dean freezes up, locks down completely, going still under Cas' gentle ministrations.

"Dean?" Cas asks in confusion, pausing.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Dean says without thinking, and what a dumb fucking excuse but holy shit, he can't breathe and his skin is too tight. He backs up, dropping his eyes as Cas slides off him with a frown.

"Dean?" Cas asks again, seeming hurt or perplexed or both.

"I'll be right back, Cas, I swear," Dean replies, still not meeting his eyes, head spinning as he scrambles for the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, his breathing fast and punching.

Oh shit. What was he thinking? He and Cas are _married,_ as in bound together, and Cas is saying shit like he loves him. Dean can't afford that, not when he'll inevitably lose Cas again or fuck him up like he does with every other relationship. He leans his forehead on the cool wood of the door and breathes deeply, trying to soothe his panic, tries not to think of Cas cold and hurt and confused out in the main room.

Dean turns and at the moment a strange shift of shadow passes in the window, and Dean snaps his head up, all hunter senses wired and alert. He's shocked and pissed to see two wide, young eyes staring back at him, framed by blond braids.

"Hey," he says, sharp and angry, "the fuck are you doing?" He makes a move forward, maybe to open the window, maybe not, but the next thing he knows, he's hit with a sharp flash of _something_ and everything goes dark.

\--

Dean comes to with a harsh gasp and hears three concurrent sighs of relief.

"Thank God," Sam breathes from above him, and Dean focuses his gaze on him dazedly. "We thought we lost you for a second there."

"How long was I out?"

"A good fifteen minutes."

Dean frowns. It had felt so much longer.

He turns to look at Cas and finds that Cas is staring down at the ground, unable to meet his gaze, his cheeks pink with either shame or embarrassment. And wow, if that doesn't make Dean feel like a class A piece of _shit._

"Do you remember everything?" Tildy asks anxiously.

"Yeah," Dean says, staring at Cas intently. "I remember everything."

Cas moves quickly away from him, still not looking at him, and heads toward the car.

He turns to find both Tildy and Sam glaring at him.

"What?" he protests, affronted.

"Fix it," Tildy says, and Sam nods.

"Shut up," Dean answers, without something better to say.

It's, needless to say, a quiet ride back to the motel. They'd left Tildy with a slightly awkward goodbye on her promise to not publish anything private online or to continue witchcraft. It seemed dubious at most to Dean, but he was too distracted to care.

He had made out with Cas. And he'd _liked_ it. He'd go so far as to say Cas put making out with any other girls to shame, as much as Dean loves women. He thinks of Cas breathing into him those sweet, soft things, and then just _leaving_ him there. He hates himself sometimes, a lot, and this is one of those times.

They're quiet on the way into the motel room too, but when they get to the door, Dean tells Sam, quietly, "Sam, I need to talk to Cas alone."

Sam nods understandingly and says, "Good on you, Dean," before smiling in encouragement and heading back out to the Impala.

Dean sighs, takes a deep breath, readjusts his shoulders. He walks in after Cas and shuts the door, leaving them alone.

Cas watches him almost warily, like he's waiting to be attacked, and something about that sends a pang of hurt resonating in Dean.

"I'm sorry, Cas," is the first thing he says. "I mean, I can't even begin to express how fucking sorry I am. I treated you like _shit._ "

Cas seems surprised but he tips his head sideways and nods. "I'm sorry, too, Dean, I should've--"

"No, you have nothing to apologize for," Dean says. "Seriously, Cas."

"I should've realized the marriage was an imprudent idea and put a stop to it before it went too far." Cas's eyes drift to the floor, dark eyelashes fanning out on his cheeks. "I...let my own feelings get in the way."

"You mean your raging hard-on for me?" Dean asks crassly, and when Cas snaps his head up to stare at him in surprise, Dean winks.

"You're not…upset?" Cas asks, with a cautious crease of his eyebrows. "I thought you would be."

"Nah. Although…" Dean swaggers forward, and Cas backs up until the backs of his knees hit the bed. "I am a little disappointed we didn't get to finish what we started."

Cas swallows dryly, his eyes flickering to Dean's lips, before he frowns, almost in irritation. "You're the one who ran out on me."

"I know," Dean says with as much contrition as he can muster. "And I'm seriously sorry. Um, if you're married to me, you'll, er…probably have to get used to that."

Cas blinks, looking lost. "I thought we were getting a divorce."

"Yeah, about that." Dean knows it's cheesy as fuck, like the end to every rom-com ever, but he's always been one for the movies, so he sort of sweeps forward and captures Cas' mouth with his, startling a soft gasp from Cas that's quickly swallowed. _Ha._

"So we're," Cas says in dazed bewilderment, starting to pant as Dean seals a kiss to his jugular, " _not_ getting divorced?"

"Mmph." Dean pushes Cas with a roll of his body until Cas tumbles backward onto the bed with Dean on top of him. Cas croaks out a groan entirely unrelated to the pain of Dean's elbow in his ribcage. "I'm thinking we should probably stay married."

"Yes," Cas says between quick gasps, "yes, I think-- _nngh_ _\--_ that would be for the best."

"Unless." Dean pulls back in a sudden moment of insecurity, which probably shows clear as day on his face. "I mean, unless you don't, um, want to--"

Cas rolls his eyes so far back into his head Dean's shocked they don't get stuck there. "Shut up, Dean."

And yeah, okay, Dean spends the next few hours shutting up. Mostly. Aside from a few interesting noises. But that's a different story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh yay, finished. :') Thanks for reading; hope you enjoyed!! (Also feel free to comment what you thought, because I kind of squeak everytime I get feedback on writing. ;u;)


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